{"id":315642,"date":"2026-02-25T00:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T00:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/315642\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T00:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T00:57:27","slug":"cause-of-72-chiang-mai-tiger-deaths-in-question-bangkok-post-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/315642\/","title":{"rendered":"Cause of 72 Chiang Mai tiger deaths in question Bangkok Post Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA regal resident of the Tiger Kingdom tourist attraction in Mae Rim district, Chiang Mai, where visitors were allowed to touch and take photos with the big cats. (Photo: Tiger Kingdom Chiang Mai Facebook)\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The deaths of 72 tigers at a tourist attraction in Chiang Mai last week have been called into question, with the source of the virus and bacteria blamed for the fatalities yet to be clearly identified.<\/p>\n

The main suspect<\/a> is the raw<\/a> chicken meat supplied by a private farm and fed to all tigers kept at the two Tiger Kingdom facilities in the northern province, in Mae Rim and Mae Taeng districts.<\/p>\n

The disposal<\/a> process for all the tiger carcasses<\/a> has now been been completed.<\/p>\n

Initially the carcasses<\/a> were burned, but there were too few cremation<\/a> facilities available and this was later changed to burial<\/a>, an official said.<\/p>\n

No skins or teeth were taken for sale, he said, and each burial<\/a> site was marked with the tiger\u2019s identification number for any future reference.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Provincial Livestock Office said the carcasses<\/a> were found to be infected with canine distemper virus<\/a>, complicated by Mycoplasma bacteria. Feline parvovirus was also earlier said to be present.<\/p>\n

Agencies responsible for disease investigation, however, have not clarified where the pathogens originated.<\/p>\n

This has led to public speculation<\/a> about whether the outbreak may have come from shared food sources rather than the diseases, or whether the stated causes of death are even accurate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An early assumption<\/a>, before laboratory results, focused on avian influenza potentially present in the raw<\/a> chicken meat, but the results did not reflect this.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, a veterinarian<\/a> who said he was part of the team handling the tiger deaths, said on Facebook, “Sweeping critical issues under the rug<\/a> and failing to learn from the disease surveillance and epidemiology system will prevent any improvement in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also suggested that the real cause may have escaped scrutiny<\/a> and continued to cause harm.<\/p>\n

Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai remains closed to the public.<\/p>\n

There were 246 tigers at the Chiang Mai facilities. By Feb 18, a total of 72 had reportedly died, the largest mass death of tigers on record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A regal resident of the Tiger Kingdom tourist attraction in Mae Rim district, Chiang Mai, where visitors were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[147362,94247,94248,147359,147357,61,60,94249,94250,7558,147364,82,1667,147361,147363,147358,147360,263,147365],"class_list":["post-315642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animal-conservation-thailand","tag-bangkok-post","tag-bangkok-post-learning","tag-canine-distemper-virus-tigers","tag-chiang-mai-tiger-deaths","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-learn-english","tag-learn-english-from-news","tag-learning","tag-raw-chicken-tiger-deaths","tag-science","tag-thailand","tag-tiger-disease-outbreak","tag-tiger-illness-investigation","tag-tiger-kingdom-chiang-mai","tag-tiger-parvovirus","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-bangkokpost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}